Picking fights, forcing change: Gov. Chris Christie's first 100 days

Matt Rainey/The Star-LedgerGov. Chris Christie hasn't been afraid to take on special interests in his first 100 days.

Barbara Keshishian, the leader of the state’s teachers union, left the governor’s office in a daze, as if she had been kicked by a mule.

She had gone to apologize after a union official joked about wanting Gov. Chris Christie to die. But the apology wasn’t enough for the warrior governor. He wanted the man fired, and when she refused, the governor dismissed her after just 15 minutes.

So much for making peace.

The new kid in town has set Trenton on fire, he knocks people down when they get in his way and pumps his fist when they fall.

“Listen, I was sent here to bring change,” Christie says. “Direct, blunt and honest — that’s how I’d describe my style. And candidly, I enjoy it.”

Talk of Christie as a presidential candidate is beyond silly at this stage. His approval ratings are dropping as he cuts popular programs. And he’s yet to face his first big test, getting his budget through the Democratic legislature.

But in his first 100 days, Christie has achieved something remarkable. In a state where government has grown like a wild vine, choking the private job market, he has built a bipartisan consensus that it’s time to scale back.

Look at the state’s job market over the last decade and you can see why he is fired up. The private sector lost more than 150,000 jobs, while governments added 70,000 workers. That is the path to economic doom.

This unrelenting growth of the public sector is a core reason New Jersey faces a budget crisis every year. Even Democrats agree that it’s time to reverse course.

“I think he’s actually doing quite well,” says Senate President Steve Sweeney. “I have his cell and he answers it. He doesn’t mince words, and I really like that. When I hang up the phone, I don’t want to be guessing about what someone said.”

The governor’s pace, so far, is blistering. He cut more than $2 billion from this year’s budget and has proposed much deeper cuts for next year. He signed one pension reform and promises another round soon. This week, he will propose a 2.5 percent cap on property taxes hikes and new rules for union negotiations. A bill to establish school vouchers is close.

“He certainly has been a bolder and more aggressive kind of governor,” says the Democratic Assembly speaker, Sheila Oliver. “I’m not going to say it’s all good stuff. But he’s hit it fast and furious.”
Christie is in many ways the opposite of Gov. Jon Corzine.

Where Corzine’s language was mushy and qualified, Christie slings his words like darts at a bull’s-eye. Where Corzine tried to avoid fights and build consensus, Christie confronts people and applies pressure. Ask Keshishian about his acidic campaign to freeze teacher salaries.

And where Corzine liked to soak the rich and protect the poor, Christie is, again, the opposite. He wants lower taxes on the rich, even as he raises the tax burden on working poor families, throws thousands off state health programs, socks low-income seniors with higher drug costs and cuts welfare for single adults who have no realistic chance of getting a job.

“There’s something unfair about that,” says the Rev. Bruce Davidson, head of the Anti-Poverty Network of New Jersey, an umbrella group.

That brings us to the coming showdown over the state budget.

Democrats want to reinstate last year’s surtax on incomes over $400,000 and use the money to soften these cuts, especially those aimed at seniors.

Christie vows he will not yield. And most impartial observers put their money on the governor in this showdown. He has veto power, for one. He keeps repeating his promise, making it harder to retreat.

And there is his attitude. He comes across as a guy who is willing to bang his head through a brick wall if that’s what it takes.

“People are surprised when a politician keeps his promise,” says former Gov. Tom Kean. “And I don’t think he can compromise on something he’s been that strong on.”

Some worry that Christie’s confrontational personality will wear thin. When he charged teachers with using students as “drug mules” during the recent school election, even his friends cringed.

“I had fights with them (the union) over bills, but the rhetoric was never that way,” Kean says. “I don’t see much good coming out of it on either side.”

For now, though, give the governor this: He’s forcing the state to confront a central problem we’ve avoided for too long, he’s scored a few wins already, and the momentum is on his side. Not bad at the 100-day mark.